HORRIBLE Customer Service for Shipping VAIO Notebooks

Hey Everybody,

I'm new here on the forums, and joined because I want to get some feedback on my ridiculous situation I'm having with Sony at the moment.

I recently customized an FW notebook with A T9900 3.06 Core 2 Duo Processor, an ATI 4560 1GB Graphics Card, 500 GB Hard Drive, and a 1920 x 1080 Resolution Screen.

I ordered it on December 9th with an estimated ship date of the 16th. But... As the days went by uselessly checking the Sony Style website, it just said "Processing: Your Vaio is being built." Being concerned with when I was getting it (It was supposed to be a Christmas / Dec 29th Birthday present) I called Sony customer support and the man whose grasp of English was limited told me they were waiting on parts to come in, but assured me it would be delivered before the 25th.

Again... Days go by, and I continue to call Sony (each time I'm talking to someone with a thick Indian accent) and they keep telling me they're waiting for a part to arrive.

It's now the 16th. No shipping confirmation Email. I call again and they say that it's STILL being built. However, I call again on the 22nd and they tell me that it's been sitting in one of their warehouses waiting to be shipped and has been since the 16th.

It's Christmas Day and I'm without a laptop. I call Sony again, and now they tell me the shipping has been delayed due to a storm in Washington. I LIVE in Washington and we have only had light snow in the passes.... Now I'm being lied to. They say it'll be shipped the 30th now.

It's the 30th. A day past my birthday. No shipping conformation. They now can't tell me why I haven't received it (and say that its been sitting in the warehouse) and tell me they can't do a damn thing about it. Being that this is the laptop that I really want, I choose to wait it out; giving Sony a chance to redeem themselves...

January 2nd, 2010. I receive an Email stating that due to the "high number" of Vaio notebooks, the estimated shipping date will be January 12th and it would be delivered a few days later. More than a MONTH after I ordered it.

At this point, I'm in a difficult position... I could cancel the order, but I really don't want a Dell Studio XPS 16" or an HP Envy 15" for a similar $1,800 price tag and there really aren't any PC notebooks highly spec'd out at local retailers. I'm probably going to keep waiting it out, but had I known Sony customer support would be this sloppy, deceitful, and wayward, I wouldn't have placed the order in the first place.

Am I the only one here that thinks that this is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE??? Has anyone else had a shipping problem that's even in the same league?

-Brandon

 

If I were you and I wasn't in a rush, I'd cancel it and order the new Vaio F11 series once it's available to order in the next few weeks - it's the FW's replacement.

 

Cancel it and re-order, I bet the second time it will be a much smoother process. Sounds like the screwed up due to the Xmas rush. I'm sure Dell had similar issues.

 

Huh... Well that sounds promising. When exactly will it be available?

 

Expected to be shipping by the end of January. There are some notable improvements, including the move from old DDR2-800 RAM into the faster DDR3-1066 RAM, Intel's next generation CPUs (replacing the older Core 2 Duos), different Graphics card, different keyboard layout etc.

I would cancel the current order and order the new model, if I were you.

 

It seems like a lot of companies have these delays ... supplies of the old tech must be getting short. I also noticed that near the end of Sony's holiday sale, they had quite a few parts out of stock, most noticeably for the CW series.

 

The parts being out-of-stock was pretty universal among all product lines. The FW range has been out of blu-ray players/burners for the past several weeks. The Z-series has been out of SSD drives for weeks now. And so on.

 

Well, I will most certainly cancel my order if you're POSITIVE that the new F11 will be shipping out near the end of January... Where are you getting your info?

Because I've got an estimated shipping date of the 12th, and who knows whether or not that's going to get pushed back...

Also, based on the speculative info, will I be able to spec out the new F11 with the new i5 processor (one with performance on par with the 3.06 T9900 Core 2 Duo) for around $18-1,900? I've gotta know quick so I can cancel this damn thing before it ships. I'd hate to have an old FW knowing that the F11 was released only weeks later!

 

It makes sense the F11 will be shipping near the end of January. The notebooks are being announced at the earliest on Jan 7 (Intel is announcing the processors in the morning from what I heard) and it'll probably go on sale right away since the new chips were shipped to vendors over the holiday.

Though it might take a little bit longer for Sony since the chips are from overseas and customized VAIOs are built in the West Coast of the USA.